Fixing Justice (36 page)

Tori was flabbergasted.
Why, the dog turned tail and ran
, she thought as anger that he lied and confusion over his having left so abruptly threw her emotions into disarray.

“I thought you two were together last night.” At her look of pure shock he quickly added, “C’mon. Nothing happens around here without my knowing.” Pointing to the screens flickering with surveillance views depicting every angle of the main compound, Alex motioned impatiently. “Don’t sweat the details, Tori. I simply happened to glance at the monitor at the exact moment that you headed off down the lane. What happened after that is between you and Drae.”

Tori hoped a sinkhole would open up under her at that moment so the embarrassment she felt would go unnoticed. Vivid snapshots lit up her mind with a tableau of images from what happened on Draegyn’s patio. This whole thing was getting worse by the moment.

“I’m not sure that
together
quite describes last night. Yes, we had a conversation,” God, she prayed the rush of color into her cheeks didn’t give too much away. “But it uh,” she tensed. “Well, it didn’t exactly clear the air.”

Alex watched her with an expression that suggested he was more than capable of filling in the blanks. It was worse than the withering frown her mother used on her as a child when she’d behaved badly. Crooking his finger, he patted the empty space next to him and waited for her to sit back down.

Sit wasn’t quite what she did. Instead, she flung herself like a ragdoll onto the bench as every muscle in her body turned to jelly. Throwing her head back she made a sound somewhere between an angry growl and a defeated whimper.

Alex let her have a moment then silently reached for her hands, forcing her to turn teary eyes his way. “I’m sorry, boss,” she murmured. The urge to run, just like she had before when her world crumbled, made its way into her mind. “Maybe it would be best for everyone…you, the agency, even Draegyn, if I just left. This is his home,” Tori whined as the reality of his having left to get away from her settled into the pit of her stomach.

Alex let her hands go, patting them solemnly where they lay limp in her lap. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he drew her against his hulking body like a parent consoling a crying child. “No rash decisions, Tori. I grant you that Drae’s actions seem a bit off.” He paused and gave her shoulder a little squeeze. “But maybe there’s something you should know about the St. John family. He’ll probably freak out on me for telling you this, but I think it may help you understand him.”

“I don’t know, Alex. Maybe me understanding what motivates him is just useless information. Especially if he hasn’t shared it with me himself. That’s not, well - that’s not the type of relationship we have. Talking isn’t exactly our strong suit.”

“Perhaps you’re right, I don’t know. That’s for both of you to decide but you should know that his parents fucked him up pretty good, a long time ago. Haven’t you ever wondered why he went into the military? Trust fund kids like the St. John’s lived a life most people can only imagine. Spending a decade slogging through dead bodies, sucking in misery through the air we breathed, was hardly what anyone expected of him. If you think about it, the life he chose tells you more about who he is than the life he was born to.” Tori fell silent, considering Alex’s words. She
had
wondered but in truth, she was so fixated on his conceited arrogance that there wasn’t much oxygen left after that.

“Don’t put much stock in whatever turns up on Google. Most of what’s written about him is salacious gossip.” She snorted in derision remembering the endless pictures and tabloid hits depicting him as a conceited man-whore. “I know what you’re thinking, believe me. But consider this – in all the years I’ve known Drae, he’s never thought twice about any of the women he’s gotten involved with. This is the first time I’ve seen him at loose ends. Only you two know what’s really going on but he hasn’t been behaving like himself for awhile now and I can’t help but think it’s because of you.”

“He lied to me, Alex. He swore no one would know.” She sat up and shook her head. “I don’t know what he told you but it’s so much worse than you could imagine. I’m not sure knowing that he came from a dysfunctional family makes much difference in the long run. Really. Despite everything else, I assumed he could be trusted.”

Alex nodded fractionally and asked, “Tori, if your mother were here, would you tell her that you and Drae had gotten married?”

“Yes, of course.”

“The Justice Brothers, we’re more than family to each other. We share a bond that goes deeper than blood. Drae didn’t lie to you, Tori. Not really. His confiding in me is no different that you reaching out to your mom.” Tori stood up and walked away from the sofa, organizing this new information in her mind. “He didn’t run,” he insisted until she glared over her shoulder at him in disbelief. “Okay, maybe that was part of it, but his leaving really was because of business.”

She’d had enough. Her head was pounding, the black sludge disguised as coffee she’d drank earlier was burning a hole in her stomach and her whole body felt hollow and empty. There was nothing she could do about Draegyn and their situation while he was in New York and she was in Arizona. What she needed right now was something…but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what that was. “I’m going to grab a sandwich before my stomach eats itself.”

Alex’s face tightened at her obvious pivot away from the subject at hand. “It was business, Tori.” He insisted a second time. “Don’t do anything rash, okay?” She nodded but didn’t meet his eyes.
Don’t do anything rash?
You mean like forgetting about little things like birth control? Anything that came after that was hardly going to seem rash.

Damn him. Jetting off to the East coast, especially after what happened the night before felt like Draegyn getting the last word. Allowing him to dominate her in the bedroom wasn’t the same as letting him always have control, although he certainly hadn’t been the one calling all the shots last night.

Murmuring a lackluster, “Understood,” Tori hurried away from the tech cave without looking back. She heard Alex sigh as he watched her escape but didn’t slow her roll at all. He admitted knowing they were married and probably figured out that they’d gotten naked and sweaty more than a few times but he didn’t,
couldn’t
, know how complicated it all really was. What a friggin’ mess, she thought for the thousandth time as she headed for the kitchen and an opportunity to be alone with her thoughts.

The pounding beat of music that was so loud it made thinking impossible, thrummed in the air as flashing lights illuminated the dance floor of the club where Drae had gone to lose himself in yet another bottle of whiskey. Somehow, the crush of bodies bouncing and gyrating along with the mind-melting music seemed more conducive to his mood than something sedate, less manic.

The moment his work assignment had ended, this had been how he spent his time. While he’d been managing the security for a high-profile foreign dignitary, Drae had punished his body with daily workouts at a gym he found on Tenth Street that specialized in the mixed martial arts he excelled at. Kicking ass and occasionally getting pounded in return kept him focused on the important work he’d been hired to perform.

Unfortunately, the moment the assignment wound up and he was free to return home, his thoughts about what awaited him in Arizona unraveled his carefully composed façade of cool, control. The solution? Whiskey and women. Always worked in the past, only this time around just the whiskey made a difference. While every female with a pulse that came anywhere near him tried to entice him with promises of a different kind of pounding, Drae hadn’t been able to muster enough interest to follow through. Not even the potential of some hot, naked, balls to the wall sex got a rise out of him.
Literally
.

Tossing back the last of the drink he’d been nursing where he sat hunched over at the end of a bar littered with fake-tittied women and the men trying to pick them up, he motioned to the bartender for a refill and tried to reign in his wandering thoughts. Fuck it if the alcohol wasn’t doing its intended job. He was headed for a royal hangover but didn’t care. Not even that could keep his mind free of memories that were wrecking his sanity. Memories of Victoria, verbally sparring with him in that feisty way she had, made him want to tame a little bit of her fire. Memories of sinking into her body, again and again, chasing an orgasm that threatened to blow his world apart. And then of course, the movie playing on a constant loop in his brain of his surprise wife on her knees, sucking him off with untutored skill that had turned him on so much, he’d lost his fucking sense and exploded in her mouth.

Feeling like shit, he knew that refusing to ask about her during the couple of phone calls he’d had with Alex had been petty and childish, but that was exactly what he’d done. He heard the censure in his friend’s voice and ignored it because, well – he didn’t know why. Maybe if Alex had indicated she wanted to talk to him, he would have backed down. But no such message was revealed and he’d simply doubled-down on the miserable attitude he was wallowing in.

Damn women
, he groused silently, slugging back yet another mouthful of amber liquid.
Oh wait, amend that
, he thought grimly. Damn
woman
, was more like it.
Just the one
. Just Victoria and her mesmerizing eyes and those sinfully decadent lips.

“Oh, well look who we have here,” a familiar voice trilled close enough for him to hear. “If it isn’t the golden cock himself!”

Drae looked up and blinked a couple of times until the blurry face in front of him came into view.
Ah fuck
. Jessamyn. And judging by the expression on her face, she was all too happy to have stumbled upon him in his half-inebriated state.

“Drinking alone, darling?” she purred. “That’s not like you Drae.” He didn’t invite her to sit down but that was just what she did with as much flourish as possible, whipping off her wrap and facing him so her crossed legs touched his. True to form he watched her push the skirt up enough that he got a good look at her long legs and bare thighs.

“Jess. Long time.” She smirked at his slurred response, eyes sparkling in a way that made him uneasy. The last thing he needed right now was an old lover coming upon him while he wasn’t exactly at his best. “What brings you here?” he asked. The way she laughed at his question suggested the words hadn’t been quite so clear or concise as his imagination thought.

It all pretty much went downhill from there. Before he knew what happened, they were ensconced in a private booth with the remnants of several rounds of drinks littering the table while she clung to him like a damn rash. Maybe it was because he was drunk or maybe because he’d never really looked all that closely at her when she’d been performing in his bed, but Drae found himself studying her through whiskey-fueled eyes and didn’t care much for what he saw.

She was an actress after all, a high profile paparazzi target, out for a night on the town and completely dressed for the part. The long, flowing blond locks that her fans adored were actually a mass of hair extensions and careful styling that were a definite no-no in the touch department. The bright violet eyes watching his every move were as fake as her hair, made possible by colored lenses. In fact, there wasn’t much about her that wasn’t plastic, manufactured, sculpted or tweaked from her Botox injected lips – that frankly, gave him the creeps – to her massive boobs that were smooshed into too-tight lingerie making them overflow the cups of her bra in a very deliberate way.

What the fuck had he been doing with her in the first place? Oh yeah. He’d been screwing her every chance he got until she’d started making those tedious relationship noises. Had she been any good in bed? Strangely, his dick didn’t seem to care at the moment. Everything about her was rendering his sex limp as an overcooked noodle.

“Why don’t we check out of this place, baby, and go someplace more private?” she cooed. Drae wasn’t sure what turned his stomach more. The blatant invitation or the way her hand traced the inside of his thigh. He choked back a laugh when the crazy bitch palmed his sex because he knew damn well her assault on his trousers was coming up empty-handed. No amount of alcohol or attempts on her part to get him hard was going to change the fact that he’d rather throw up on her right now than stick his tongue down her throat.

“S’not gonna happen Jizz, uh, Jas, I mean, Jess,” he ground out in a drunken slur as he shook his head with each wrong pronunciation of her name. The look she gave him suggested she didn’t care what he said. Drunk or not, the randy actress intended to get her way. Drae knew she’d stop at nothing to get him naked and on his back where she could ride him like the bitch in heat she was. The thought made him shudder.

Searching for his wallet with hands made clumsy by drink, Drae finally located it in his suit jacket not a second too soon for Jessamyn was attracting the attention of the club-goers who were always on the look-out for a celebrity sighting. Watching her fake and phony posturing left him cold. She had this way of waving her fingers – she called it twinkling – that made her look like a spastic twelve-year-old trying to get the attention of whatever guy happened by.